bt (dwell) wrote in lj_maintenance,
2010-02-17 16:45:00

Payment Notification Problems Today - Feb 17, 2010

Ahhh, notifications, one of our favorite subjects. I do want to limit the scope of this entry to just the PAYMENT RECEIVED notifications that went out earlier this afternoon. I know that a sizable chunk of us are still having various problems receiving notifications on a timely basis and we are working on that*.

For those of us that unexpectedly received "payment received" emails/notifications for v-gifts, paid accounts or other items from the LiveJournal store, please keep in mind:

  1. These are just the notifications, we have not charged you for them again even though they were sent today.
  2. Many of these notifications are either duplicates or were never originally sent when you made the purchase weeks or months ago.
  3. The notification does not mean you were enrolled in some auto-renew program without your consent.


We apologize for the confusion we've caused and hope this answered the most common concerns and questions.


We rewrote the way our web and worker servers interface with Memcached, which required upgrading all of the Perl Storable modules from version 2.12 to 2.15. We had to do all of them BEFORE the next patch release, and do them pretty much simultaneously since the 2.12 and 2.15 versions are incompatible as far as being able to read information that was written in the previous version.

For those of us familiar with desktop programs like a word processor, think how sometimes the latest updated program will automatically convert a file that you saved in a previous version and you can read it fine, but if you edit it and then try to save it, there will be a warning saying the old version of the program won't be able to read the new file? Does this even make sense to anyone or am I rambling again? It's the same concept with the Perl modules that we upgraded today.

The upgrade was supposed to be seamless and no one would even notice, except for the good things that were to come later.

However, in the process of upgrading, we discovered that 2 of our latest servers somehow had an even newer, 2.21 version on there! So anything they've been WRITING, has been unable to be read and acted upon with the old version. And then we upgraded to 2.15 that can actually read the jobs and well... some of those jobs that disappeared? Surprise, we found them!

It was actually a non-pleasant surprise to us as well as you.





* We've actually started over-hauling our notification system -- the actual code -- to make it more robust and cohesive, as well as give us better debugging so we can more accurately track down the source of problems. This rewrite started in the last release but that release also had it's share of problems. We are continuing to release fixes and hope to fix the largest problems very soon.
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zerisama

February 18 2010, 00:46:57 UTC 3 years ago

I just got a notification from three days ago.

I'm glad things have been looked into.

crackr_jax

February 18 2010, 07:43:59 UTC 3 years ago

notification from november today.

zerisama

3 years ago

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arethinn

3 years ago

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jen_aside

February 18 2010, 00:49:15 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you! I was wondering where this mystery $15 was going...

eiko83

February 18 2010, 00:49:28 UTC 3 years ago

Well~ i am glad this is only an email spam after all XD

darkblysse

February 18 2010, 00:49:38 UTC 3 years ago

So that's what it was? And here I thought someone had bought me stuff for my birthday, ffft.

golden_hawke

February 18 2010, 12:56:22 UTC 3 years ago

I know, rite?

foreverbm

February 18 2010, 00:51:07 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you for clarifying that, I wondered why I was getting payment received notifications from last month

siberian_angel

February 18 2010, 15:25:12 UTC 3 years ago

Same here, I'm glad that got cleared up!

trobadora

February 18 2010, 00:53:19 UTC 3 years ago

Thanks for the explanation - and thanks for updating the status page so promptly!

sarisynn

February 18 2010, 00:53:30 UTC 3 years ago

Yeah, I got one of these today. I was all excited until I realized it was a receipt from when I bought some Paid account time... in November.

Ah well. Thanks for clearing it up for us though! =]

shahrizai

February 18 2010, 01:04:24 UTC 3 years ago

Ha ha ha, same here. At least it wasn't Dreamhost who actually *tried* to charge everybody. Whoops.

As a web developer, I'm totally cool when stuff like this happens - I know how it feels to make an ooopsie.

dewline

3 years ago

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verizonhorizon

February 18 2010, 00:54:07 UTC 3 years ago

Please fix it so entries that used to be set for "do not email" aren't automatically reinterpreted as "don't notify at all", b/c now 150+ entries of mine aren't getting notifications because of the new menu changes....aaaah!

dawnnamira

February 18 2010, 01:39:20 UTC 3 years ago

Yes, this, LiveJournal! If someone responds to a comment I made in an entry set like this, I should still get my comment notification!

fiona_conn

3 years ago

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doeeyedbecky

February 18 2010, 00:54:08 UTC 3 years ago

Nothing like a good freakout to liven up the day! LOL

tsukara

February 18 2010, 00:54:49 UTC 3 years ago

Ah, thanks for the update. Glad it was just a notif glitch, not a payment one. At least you found the missing jobs, eh?

tau_iota_mu_c

February 18 2010, 01:00:01 UTC 3 years ago

> logout
There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them?

lupislune

3 years ago

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tsukara

3 years ago

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southypeach

February 18 2010, 00:56:50 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you for the explanations!

elder_goddess

February 18 2010, 00:57:05 UTC 3 years ago

My poor little payment notification was shivering in a lost corner of the internets for SIX WEEKS. Glad you found it and sent it on :D

naa

February 18 2010, 00:57:53 UTC 3 years ago

Mine was from a payment 11/23/09 that's a few months ago oO;

marginoferror

February 18 2010, 01:01:34 UTC 3 years ago

This really freaked out my friend, who thought her credit card had been stolen. It was irresponsible of you guys to let these notifs out all of the sudden without some kind of explanation.

rinkle

February 18 2010, 01:16:53 UTC 3 years ago

It sounds like they weren't really aware what notifs were going to appear, either. I know it freaked me out a little, but considering the lack of communication in the past from LJ about things, I for one am very happy with how quickly an explanation has appeared here.

drusilla

3 years ago

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marginoferror

3 years ago

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emploding

3 years ago

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marginoferror

3 years ago

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dwell

3 years ago

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ldybastet

3 years ago

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marginoferror

3 years ago

  • New comment

dwell

3 years ago

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coffeechica

3 years ago

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lupislune

February 18 2010, 01:04:57 UTC 3 years ago

Bonk! Bonk! I'm still not getting poll notifications.

glowing_dragon

February 18 2010, 03:34:07 UTC 3 years ago

Neither am I!

albert71292

February 18 2010, 01:06:17 UTC 3 years ago

Yeah, I got two of those "payment received" emails earlier... just naturally assumed there was a "hiccup" in the system. Been around here long enough (nearly ten years), so I'm kind of used to them! :-)

daluci

February 18 2010, 01:32:31 UTC 3 years ago

I appreciate the explanation, and I'm glad to hear it was caused by updates — at least we're moving forward as well as slightly back. ;) Good luck with everything.

sundayave

February 18 2010, 01:33:15 UTC 3 years ago

I didn't get one of those, and I thought I would at any instant, as I'd renewed in January. Alas!

Also, is LJ impossibly slow for anyone else? (Probably.)

cricketgrl

February 18 2010, 01:34:30 UTC 3 years ago

LJ Is having some SERIOUS lagging and loading issues.

sundayave

3 years ago

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liedownlovely

3 years ago

  • New comment

sundayave

3 years ago

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liedownlovely

3 years ago

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...and 8 more comments... from bandgeek01, glowing_dragon, dwell… Expand

eveofrevolution

February 18 2010, 01:43:28 UTC 3 years ago

OMG thank God this was a glitch. I was terrified because my bank account is very empty right now and I thought it had automatically charged me for more userpics because my extras are expiring soon.

rinkle

February 18 2010, 01:45:41 UTC 3 years ago

Your icon. *feels slightly sea sick*

eveofrevolution

3 years ago

  • New comment

rinkle

3 years ago

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eveofrevolution

3 years ago

  • New comment

rinkle

3 years ago

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eveofrevolution

3 years ago

  • New comment

rinkle

3 years ago

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bicyclegasoline

February 18 2010, 01:47:16 UTC 3 years ago

Thanks for letting us know - I received one from December and was a bit confused!

ydna

February 18 2010, 01:53:15 UTC 3 years ago

Wait a minute! You mean to tell me this site is made using Perl? Isn't Perl a dead language. I thought it was using something ultra modern and secure, like PHP. Brad must be rolling over in his grave.

dwell

February 18 2010, 08:30:22 UTC 3 years ago

Heh heh, Brad's not dead, he's alive and kicking and doing very well from what I hear! And I see you have a permanent account from 2002 so I'm guessing your comment is tongue-in-check.

bt

dwell

3 years ago

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baljemmett

3 years ago

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crimsonlegend

February 18 2010, 02:02:17 UTC 3 years ago

Thank you! I was worried for a while there. :(

ajnastarheart

February 18 2010, 02:21:24 UTC 3 years ago

Glad that money isn't coming out of my account!

Thanks for explaining... :)

sursumcorda

February 18 2010, 02:58:02 UTC 3 years ago

Thanks for clarifying! I was freaking out :)

tubofgoodthings

February 18 2010, 02:59:56 UTC 3 years ago

I just love that you used the term "robust."
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